


Leave the winter on the ground

by actualjohnwatson



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: After season 3 episode 7, Angst, Blood, Gen, Will misses Abigail, and Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualjohnwatson/pseuds/actualjohnwatson
Summary: Will likes to pretend he's put Hannibal behind him.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Leave the winter on the ground

It was Wally’s birthday and Will had promised him ice cream. The sticky heat of the Montana summer had reached its peak that July and the boy had asked for ice cream. Will took him to the quaint little burger place that served fifteen different flavors. Wally got praline and Will got double chocolate. Wally asked if they could go pick up a new pack of baseball cards and Will, feeling generous, agreed, enjoying his ice cream and the boy’s quiet presence beside him. It’s sunny in a way that blinds you if you look up to far. Ice cream dripping off his cone and he tries not to think about all the blood he's had dripping down his arm, real or imagined, as he licks it up

Maybe that’s what it was. He was blinded when he saw her. A young woman. A girl, really, with dark hair wearing a scarf in the summer heat. Will does a double take stopping in his tracks and for a moment he can’t breathe, staring in the too bright sunlight. It’s more than a few moments before he remembers where he is and he pelts after her leaving his ice cream cone and Wally alone in the middle of the sidewalk. He grabs the girls shoulder and turns her around heart beating in his chest so hard it hurts. Snakes squirming in his gut. 

But the girl doesn’t look like Abigail, she just looks frightened. No, in the light she looks nothing like Abigail. She’s shorter and darker. Her hair closer to an inky black then auburn. It must have been some kind of trick of the light. He takes his hand off her shoulder like it’s burned him and stammers an apology.

“It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it Will? To have Abigail back is to go back to the beginning once again.” That voice whispers in his ear, familiar and warm. It’s hard to keep himself from picturing Hannibal beside him in some fancy ass suit despite the heat. Will grinds his teeth. It doesn't matter. He isn’t real. His stomach churns as he heads back to Wally. He passes his ice cream dripping on the sidewalk, the ants already drawn to it. 

The boy doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to. He looks frightened and confused and Will doesn’t know how to begin to explain why he acted the way he did. So Will lets them fade to quiet. There’s a guest walking beside them now. His vision turned to velvety black with horns that hang high over Will’s head. His presence quietly reminding Will how he frightened that young woman. That he’s scaring the boy. He can’t replace Abigail with Wally. Even if he did find someone to need him. Someone to call him dad. Will likes that doesn’t he? It’s too bad he’s scaring the boy.

And Will thinks about how he should really stop trying to bring Hannibal back to his quiet safety and his quiet little life. But the man haunts his dreams. It seems impossible to stop now. Even in the summer heat, he could feel those cold, cold, Virginia winters. 

He swallows and looks at the quiet pale boy beside him, looking pointedly at the sidewalk under his feet. Will tells himself he’s happy. He has everything a normal man would want now. There’s nothing he would change.


End file.
